Deepest, Darkest Eden: New Tales of Hyperborea

by John Shirley

  And Apollon spoke: Oh. It was all My will.

  That the blind man be dragged from his home. That he face death at sea, and that his captors all die in the roiling water.

  That the blind man live, but only barely, kept alive by his curiosity. It amused Apollon to see a blind man aboard a rudderless ship.

  Zhothaqquah Zhothaqquah Zhothaqquah!

  There was a poetry to the notion.

  That the blind man hear the boy’s words as Greek.

  And Zhothaqquah was just the guise Apollon wore in these lands.

  Zhothaqquah Zhothaqquah Zhothaqquah!

  And Apollon was just the guise Zhothaqquah wore among the olive-pit spitters and squid-eaters and the boy-rapists. Death through the plague of frogs, or death through disease and arrow-points, it is all the same.

  Zhothaqquah Zhothaqquah Zhothaqquah!

  But Apollon also has the power to heal. Should he heal the man, or the boy?

  And if you heal me, the blind man thought, which divine visage would I lay eyes upon? Then he understood that someone had already been healed.

  “Boy! Look out to the sea!” the blind man cried out. “What is it?”

  The boy gasped, then gurgled. “Dark,” he spat out finally, “dark as wine!” And those were the last words of Greek the blind man would hear from the boy, who chanted Zhothaqquah Zhothaqquah Zhothaqquah! till his tongue swelled in his throat and he died in a frenzy of thrashing. The sun finally set after long hours rolling through the sky.

  The blind man made his way to the sea, on his hands and knees. His flesh was shredded, and only the blasted landscape kept night-beasts from pacing the streak of blood he left as his wake. The appetite of the mad god had consumed nearly all life on these shores. The blind man threw himself in the water, hungry for death.

  But he would not die. The blind man bobbed like a piece of driftwood, though he dove deep and swallowed salt water by the bellyful. His limbs were broken sticks, but still he floated, and paddled against his own will. At dawn, a ship of Thracians encountered the deranged, blathering man. Two little specks in the endless black sea. It took weeks for the blind man to find his way home; months for the blind man to regain his senses. Why Apollon compelled him to live, he knew not why. More caprice, more fatal whim. But lived the blind man did.

  And the blind man plotted his revenge. A tale of gods, cruel and changeable, bedeviling even the greatest heroes of the world. Who could not hear the long song of war and blood and fail to raise arms against these beings from the sky? The nations of men are not enemies of one another—we have only one foe, and we are fools to worship him. But we are many, and the gods are few. Indeed, fewer even than we think. The blind man’s song would be timeless, a magic message to the future. Men of the world, cultivate your intellects and use your minds to free our world from the caprice of the gods! We need not be pawns of the gods, hostages of fate! Even if Apollon had manipulated the blind man into singing his song—to eliminate the hold other gods have on the tribes of men, to taunt men with visions of terror—what could Apollon do against the weight of the human race?

  It might take three thousand years, but surely all who heard the blind man’s song would join together and cleanse the languages of the Earth of the very word God.

  Any day now.

  Any day…

  To Walk Night... Alone...

  By Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.

  (for Cody Goodfellow… because he’s crazy)

  Big moon. Wind forging things in the trees.

  NIGHT-SOUNDS. Sorties.

  Things that are. Not there.

  Clouds pushed from their climb toward East.

  at the base of a hill

  under a sky not painted black

  cold

  wind tearing chunks from skin

  still WET

  mud-and-bog WET

  (a whole day in the marshes. fell twice. cursed the mage’s charge a hundred times.)

  Small fire climbing among the ring of ceremonial rocks. Risky.

  Dry

  or FREEZE. Attha is searching for dry. After dry he’ll try for warm. Then he’ll try to kill a grey-pig.

  Chews on the blood-root. Sour, but here where the rough-grass scratches and cuts, food is food. The energy transfusion swims, each little arc promises. Bitter, the tongue wants to go away from the task of the mouth. BITTER. Only the stupid refuse to partake.

  Attha adds two more chunks of wood to his fire. Builds another layer on risk.

  They might see it. Could smell it. And if they did, would come, on their bellies, cutting through the tall grass and the dirt. Come with their black eyes and black talons. Come—COLD as any device of war—with arms to clutch. Come to eat flesh and gorge on blood.

  GREENandREDandBLACKanddirtBROWN, some striped, some blotched, the Snakemen. Long flat heads and long arms and long snake bodies.

  Lifts his fingers. Bite. Chews.

  Looks at the

  moon.

  Looks at his

  sword.

  Both

  sharp as the cold.

  Then his axe.

  Sharp as the

  cold.

  Moves closer to his fire.

  Dry.

  Dry can kill the cold god.

  Attha stands. Stays close to the fire. Rearranges his clothes on the sticks. Some parts are dry. Some soon. Won’t be long he can put his shirt on.

  Not long.

  Good bed of coals now. Adds more wood. Stands close as he can.

  Dry.

  The naked side facing his fire warm.

  His naked back burns with cold.

  The conviction of an owl cuts the moon. Attha knows his hunger. Wishes him luck. Good to honor likeminded, might

  find

  it returned to him.

  He’s dry. Warmer. Not warm.

  Shirt’s dry. Puts it on. Covers his arms, torso, almost down to his knees.

  Dry.

  Warmer. Not warm.

  Thanks the owl.

  Wishes him well again.

  Looks at the pouch he carries, the pouch marked with the shape of Sisyph. The pouch he carries to Vwidlen the Enchanter. Looks at his sword beside it, the sword never far from his scarred hand. Knows which is more powerful.

  East waits o’er this

  titan hill of bramble and black sores and struggling green.

  Vwidlen’s black and dusty keep sits there.

  Vwidlen waits—

  Over the sheer hill and through the sizable address of darkening trees and parched grass when the sky opens its mouth and shouts light.

  No clouds. They’ve gone. Flew east. His day-walk will be dry.

  His pants are dry.

  Puts them on.

  Warmer.

  Blesses the owl again.

  Drier

  and no Snakemen. As soon as his boots are dry he’ll put his sword into a grey-pig. Eat.

  With a full belly he can make it through the long day to Vwidlen’s keep.

  It will be warm and dry there.

  Warm and dry like the Hall of the Toad.

  Drier now. Warmer now.

  Over the hill there are no Snakemen.

  Over the hill there is a long day’s march and the keep.

  Cloak and boots are dry.

  And now on.

  Warm grows.

  Light comes.

  The Snakemen that crawl and eat men do not.

  Attha fixes the pouch to his belt, presses his palm to it, feels the small mound within. Sheltered and safe. He is pleased. Takes his sword in hand. Slings his axe over his back. Moves away from his fire and into the tall grass.

  Deep in the affairs of flesh his sword bleeds a grey-pig. A small one. No joy, but a blossom dressed like relief comes over him. He blesses the owl again.

  Puts a chunk of the grey-pig on a stick over the fire. Puts a few strips on other sticks. Hears them sizzle. Puts two more chunks of wood on the fire.

  Before the sun is up and full he will
eat.

  Looks at the sky above the trees, hopes the owl will, as well.

  Under the sky he faces, no taverns burning with ales and wine and plump wenches that offer their bottoms to loins as they bend to pour from frothy pitchers—Savage every season is this house of death. No past battles lie here, the half-men, the Snakemen, enter not into battle, they come, they slay, they offer no time for reply. And after they take living’s ambition from blood and bone, leave little trace. Six days in this kingdom with his sword in his fist. Six days, a flood of thrusting and goading nerves, his blue eyes cutting every sound, and still carrying his skin . . . Walked and walked and walked and kept walking . . .

  Charged by the mage Messtisl. Left the bane-hung halls.

  Left the alleys of migrant cats and pickpockets. Left the chasms between torches that often outlived the hurried strides that were broken by danger beneath them . . . pieces that take up space and don’t float . . . Left the scaffold-phobias of timid Us crossing and recrossing the thirst of the huddled and hidden in their dark places. Afflicted, pontificating Us divided by the brute deposits of They/middles of squiggly-scandals/naked (to their dirty ankles) candles hissing for thrills/another and another, one fancy, one nervous, judged and used/fetish/guilt/scruples/“It was not.” . . . Left, as if hurled, for the freezing tongue of darkness.

  Left flaunt and frail. Left a world, every gesture of ploughed field and tower, called civilization.

  Outside its thick dark walls, walked, hand on his scabbard, by the field of dead tongues.

  Walked

  over wind-carved slopes

  through ragged knots of ebony trees the ages could not devour

  Heard

  bats sing of their achievements

  Smelled

  migrating vines of rain coming to moisten meadow and sky

  and efforts . . .

  Walked

  and diminished,

  grew tired.

  Climbed

  go on

  muscle. next step. wet boots. resist the slow sink-mouth of mud. go on. wet.wet.push

  for the steady and sharp of fire.

  Curse the dripping sky. Curse the ground.

  Curse the oarsmen pushing the porcupine wind hunting the skin in his clothes.

  wet. wet.

  Slogged

  mud tugging . . . go on . . . MUD hamstringing every left . . . right . . . left . . .

  Cursed

  the chains of the slavers who came to his village and bought him from his parents and sold him in Uzuldaroum to a guild wizard who served Zhothaqquah. Cursed the wizard who bought him and then sold him

  cursed and kept on

  and

  vowed by all Elder Lords that song of the worms could not corrupt he would not

  fall.

  Rope bridge over a river whose swift blue hands carried the voice of the mountain to the cold sea.

  Rain

  gesture and claw of splayed castanets rattling

  —epic if you could remain inside incommunicado—

  biting every itch and edge.

  Swollen

  by the stacked WET thorns

  scalp

  to

  knee. RAIN . . . Dyeing blood and bone—

  Go on

  as the wind forged.

  Walked, shouldered the on to,

  as the sun

  bled to death

  in

  the arms of the

  horizon.

  Built

  little fires singing with flame

  that

  streamed

  and

  smoked.

  Slept

  when he could. Ate when he could. Watched.

  a day

  dead leaves scattered, flapping

  and

  another

  Noted the grey-black turns of the meshed sky, and walked

  over

  rocks

  with customs

  that had nothing to say . . .

  and

  another.

  —tired

  —sword poised

  ready for skulls

  ready to outlast

  —brooded

  —shivered

  —slept

  in a small cave

  outside

  the wind carried

  the scent of

  blood

  to

  night-things

  that laughed.

  Walked

  where death walked

  where death—slow or frenzy or tangled—turned living into cadavers blue and black until small creatures and black deathbirds and contagions of insects and null finished feasting.

  Attha walks the day

  night comes

  makes his camp, makes his fire in a heavy stand of trees

  he is dry

  this night carries a small chill

  his fire stretches its warm

  he has food

  and his heavy cloak.

  On… In… Over…

  the brown-bog

  and the long marshes

  mud

  and pools

  wild grasses

  treeless

  fell when the dirt-water was knee-high

  the wind laughed

  splashed him with COLD

  Walked fast as he could.

  Fell again. WET clings to the bone-clinging chill of WET. And the wind laughs . . .

  Needed trees.

  Needed FIRE.

  Bends closer to the snarls of his fire. Warm his god. Smoke curls from the altar.

  Night-sounds.

  They comfort him.

  He eats four strips of meat. Cuts strips from the chunk and wraps them in a skin for the march. Drinks his last from the skin-pouch. Warmer. With his sword tip spreads small coals on the dirt. Stirs them around in the dirt. Buries some. Lies down with his sword in one hand and his long-blade in the other.

  Dreams.

  Big moon. Its noiseless whole in the woods.

  Wind laughing in the trees.

  The smell of a fire. Not his fire. A fire roasting pleasing fare, meat among herbs. A woman’s fire offering ripe. Turns. Through a thin in the trees he sees smoke and light in the small window of a hut.

  Stunned he looks long.

  Here?

  In the Empty Land? None rest here. Legend and map and tavern-talk agree none live here. Death will send his giant cloud here to remove any settler and, most often, traveler.

  The door of the hut opens. A woman comes out. Young and robust and naked, prettier than any pretty tavern-girl. Eyes as bright as the moon. Hair the color of soft moonlight. Breasts round and full, soft in tone and firm, twin perfect moons white as the inside of a coconut-fruit from the shores of the deep South Islands. She steps into the moonlight. Gliding white-dove hands stroking the moon above, she begins to sing and dance.

  He clears the trees. Walks to her. Stand and watches—watches her curves arrange the future—watches her legs beckon the stars to come down and unfold red poppy music, come down and bejewel her seeds of living.

  She turns and stops.

  Proud. Open. No downstream of fear breaks on her face.

  Smiles.

  Center and deep he is warm.

  Voice convivial as the gleam of a jewel. “I offered all for you to come,” she says.

  Offers her hand. “Come inside and I will show you.”

  Awake. Shivers. Blinks at the full light. Shakes with be quiet now to the clinging mist of his dream.

  Too many days without warm food. Too many nights without honey and ale and the warm gleam of an agreeable girl in his soft bed. Curses the hard lot of a soldier-servant.

  Stands.

  Another day has been uncovered and thrown before him. He has his sword in his hand.

  Begins to mount the hill.

  Up the hill.

  Down.

  Onward. No mud. No snakemen . . . A butterfly crosses his path . .
. A field with charms. Chews a strip of meat as he leaves morning for mid-day. Fills his skin-pouch in a clear pool.

  Marches on . . .

  The trees thicken and become a forest. Night’s black sails will soon suck up the sky.

  Hoping for the wide face of the moon, he gathers wood. Is pleased with the fire. And the tenor of night-sounds.

  Eats from his chunk of meat.

  Pulls his cloak tight about him.

  Sleeps.

  Woken by his caretaker owl.

  Big moon.

  The smell of a fire turns him. Not his fire. A fire roasting meat. A harbor of honey and heartening herbs sings in the air. A woman’s fire offering ripe he thinks. Through a thin in the trees he sees smoke and light in the small window of a large hut.

  Stunned. Looks long.

  “How can this—”

  The mage and his sworn master tested him when he was a sapling. Too keen for the stables or the kitchen, yet not drawn to the systems of scribes. The boy was rooted to the relations and aspects of worldly matter, no vision, no further or sense of motion in the windows and blacknesses of the Beyond called to him. Labeled him, “Soldier.” Put a sword in his hand. He trained hard under the swordmaster and the guard captain, and when he was ready and promoted stood ready at the enchanter’s doorway. All day while the wizard slept. Soldier, marked by his master’s eyes and word as not one to peer into the charnel cloudstream of the Tolxian vapors and the mirror abyss of Phreinalor. He is a soldier, nothing more. Without the gift and the journey of wizard-craft he could not create this.

  His master said he could never see tomorrow, he was no visionary, no dreamer.

  Yet he had.

  Stares at the door of the hut.

  It is the door. The same.

  “This can not—”

  Opens.

  Gasps as the dream-woman steps through it.

  “She is . . . Her.”

  Pure and young and full-bodied—no girdle or robe.

  Unashamed.

  Prettier than any appealing tavern-wench. Eyes as vivid as the moon. Hair the color of pure velvet-moonlight. Breasts round and full, soft in tone and firm, twin perfect moons white as the interior of a coconut-fruit from the exotic South Islands. She steps into the moonlight.

  Gliding white-dove hands—the ascension UP! UP! Measured by charity never quarrel—caressing the moon above.

  Begins to chant… and dance.

  Attha clears the stand of trees. Walks toward her. Stands.

  Watches—